Remembering Rizza

Episode # 26 - Rizza 

On a Friday night in June 2023, Rizza Abrera was sitting in the nail salon she owned, getting her nails done. Her EX-boyfriend, a man who had raised many red flags for her family, burst in, grabbed Rizza by the forearm, and dragged her outside. 

Several witnesses tried to stop him, but he pulled out a gun, threw Rizza into his SUV, and sped away, barricading himself in his Southwest Valley home with two other women, and their 3-year-old daughter.

Las Vegas Metro’s SWAT team negotiated with him for hours before they finally went in. When they did, they discovered the unthinkable inside his home.

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on domestic violence, missing persons, and unsolved cases. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room. 

[Shaun] 

Sometimes there are cases we’d like to cover, but it turns out to be hard because most of the information out there is about the murderer, or the horrible details of the crime, with often just a passing mention of the victim. They’re often totally overlooked, and we don't want to cover a case and end up just telling you all about the crime itself. Occasionally you'll find an interview with the victim’s family but not always. This case has a bit of that, but we were able to find out a bit more about Rizza so we’ll be focusing more on her.

[John ] 

Another thing that seems to happen a lot here in Las Vegas is home barricades. It seems like you can't go a week without hearing about a street or neighborhood being on lockdown because someone has locked themselves in their house with someone, and it rarely ends well. The weird thing we’ve noticed about those barricade cases is that they’re almost always treated like traffic reports. 

The news mostly focuses on the impact on traffic and the commute, not the human cost, and the impact to the victim or their family that is left behind. It’s frustrating. 

In the coverage, you'll get a name, age, and cause of death many times, and then the news cycle moves on.

They’re all tragedies, and they all involve the loss of real people who were friends, sisters, moms, and daughters.

Do you want to start by telling us about Rizza?

[Shaun] 

Sure. Rizza was born in the Philippines to parents Myrna and Dennis Doney on January 12th, 1985. Her family is pretty huge. She has 4 brothers Ricoh, Raniel, Ricardo, and Jeffrey, and 2 sisters Rodalyn and Ricamyr. She also has 4 children ranging in age from 3 to 17. Her oldest 3 kids are from a prior relationship, but her youngest she had with her ex-boyfriend Steve. 

One of the things we noticed in the many comments left by loved ones about Rizza was that one of her daughters is named after a friend of hers who had passed away. She obviously loved her friends as if they were family. On her obituary website, you can see dozens of photos and tributes from friends from throughout her life. 

While we’re talking about photos, I want to share that my favorite photo of her and her kids that we saw was one from Christmas, where the 5 of them, Rizza included, all wore matching pajamas. They took a sweet smiling photo with Santa, but they also took a goofy photo, with silly faces and their tongues sticking out. Even Santa made a goofy face in the photo. The picture is so sweet and it was both beautiful and painful to see. 

Back to her childhood, Rizza was athletic growing up and played basketball and soccer. She loved science and especially playing with insects. She was so smart in fact that she skipped 3rd grade.

The family moved to Las Vegas, and of course, Rizza became a Golden Knights fan from right from the start of their inaugural season. She loved hockey and she loved the golden knights, and she would post on her social media how bummed out she was that it wasn’t hockey season. 

She loved connecting with people, cooking, watching tv shows and movies, and she even pursued a career in acting and modeling.

She landed a role in a movie called “Conspiracy Theory” which is a “found footage” horror movie about a film crew working in Southern Nevada and discovering “a terrible secret lurking below Lake Mead” She was also in a pilot for a TV series called “the 702” which sounds a little like the OC but set in Las Vegas.

She also took jobs as a spokesmodel at CES, and worked as a cocktail waitress for about 10 years before she finally opened her own business. She owned the K&M Nail Salon on Eastern and St Rose.

[John] 

As you might have guessed, she also loved being a mom, and she wanted to do everything for her kids. She had plans for them to travel, and she had them in self-defense classes at One Kick’s Gym where they were learning Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu and MMA.

She was always trying to improve herself, and her friends said she brought out the best in others.

Her friend Jhenny, on her memorial page, said that she was a “hustler” (in a good way). That she worked multiple jobs to make sure that her kids had what they needed. She said that Rizza barely rested.

Her ex-boyfriend, Steven Robert Evans, was born in 1982, so he was about 4 years older than her. He went to Las Vegas High School and ran a dog breeding business where he bred pit bulls and French bulldogs.

The two of them were never married, but they did live together for many years, according to court testimony. 

Steven was also a conspiracy theorist. Reading through his social media posts it's pretty clear that he believed pretty much any conspiracy theory that he came across. 

There are posts about “stopping the steal” of the 2020 election, Pizza Gate, the death of Jeffrey Epstein, and the “new world order”.

He was also an anti-vaxxer and posted about microchips and 5g.

Coincidentally, Steven shares a name with another man around his age, who also lives in Las Vegas, and also has a significant criminal history. We strive to provide you with the most accurate information when we discuss cases, and out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of making sure we have the facts straight, we were cautious to leave information out of this episode that we weren't 100% able to verify

[Shaun] 

According to what was reported by the Review Journal, Rizza had a restraining order against Steven, however, according to reporting, any information about the restraining order has been sealed by the court. We will talk about what we were able to learn about the restraining order in a minute, but for now, we will say that we don’t know what the circumstances were that led to the order being filed or when it happened. 

Steven does have a record of being charged with burglary, Attempted murder with a deadly weapon, and not surprisingly Domestic Violence, however, all of those charges were dismissed. 

On November 11th, 2022 there is a court record that shows Rizza was arrested for Domestic Violence, but those charges were dropped. Her attorney moved for the charges to be dropped, and the State agreed. 

It’s not uncommon for the police to be called out on a domestic violence call to find two domestic partners fighting and simply arrest them both. It seems pretty questionable given that Rizza’s family has said that Steven was the domestic abuser in the relationship time and time again, not to mention the fact that he was about twice her size. The details of the court proceedings for both Rizza and Steven are hard to come by, probably because of the children involved. We are trying not to speculate too much when we just don’t have the information. 

We do know that on November 14th, 2022, Rizza filed in family court, suing Steven for custody of their 3-year-old daughter. Again, the details are not public. 

On November 15th, Rizza posted on Facebook “At the end of the day your cars, house, your “property“ are just things that can easily be replaced. Your body, your heart, your brain and your health cannot be replaced. Protect it as your life depends on it and always put you first! #NewBeginnings #Happy”. 

It seems like whatever happened on November 11th was a turning point for Rizza, and she had had enough. She moved out of the house she shared with Steven and moved in with family members. 

[John] 

According to her friend Jhenny, around this time good positive things started happening for Rizza. She opened her nail Salon and was finding love for herself. She said “She has found a new calling” “She was thriving and in love with life”.

The flip side is that she told Nick Blomgren, a friend who managed the martial arts gym she sent her kids to, that she was having no luck getting away from Steven. She said she’d called lawyers, and gone to the police, but he suffered no consequences and wouldn’t leave her alone. He was quoted as saying “The system had failed her”. 

That’s another common thread among the stories we cover. You often hear the police talk about how “if you’re in a domestic violence situation you should go and get help”, and while that is absolutely true, many times these women try everything to get help, but the court system completely fails them. That happened to Phoukeo from our 2nd episode, and it happened to Rizza too.

Blomgren told Fox 5 News in Las Vegas that he’d tried to call the police about Evans, but of course, the police wouldn't comment, saying that it was an ongoing investigation

[Shaun]

This case is so eerily similar to Phoukeo’s murder that it’s infuriating –  From the salon to the kidnapping, to the barricade, to the broken system – 7 years later another woman who sought help is murdered in Las Vegas. 

On January 25, 2023, there was a hearing regarding the child custody suit Rizza had filed. Rizza was not present at the hearing, according to her attorney, because she was in the hospital. We don’t have any additional information. 

Custody was resolved, with both Steven and Rizza having joint custody and equal time with their daughter. During the hearing, Rizza’a attorney stated that the TPO needed to remain in place. We aren’t sure if the TPO that was referenced is the same one that was reported in the Press as being “sealed.” According to her attorney, the TPO was working, and the two of them needed to be ordered not to talk to each other except about their daughter. There was to be no discussion about their past romantic relationship. 

Custody swapping was going to continue to happen through Steven’s sister or in public places. 

Steven was also ordered to pay her attorney's fees of over $5,000 and he was ordered to give her back the title to her car, as well as the appliances that were still in his house that she had bought. Again, they were never married, but the court was involved in helping the two separate, which was complicated given the abuse and the amount of time they had lived together. 

As you have heard us say before, the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence is when they try to leave. By the summer of 2023, Rizza was moving on, her salon was doing well, and her friends and family noticed things were good for her. 

On June 16th, 2023, a Friday night, Rizza was getting her nails done in her salon around 7:30 pm. In the security video from the salon, you can see Steven burst in the door and violently grabbed her by the wrist and forearm, hoisting her off her feet, breaking her arm, and sending the chair she was sitting on and the nail supplies on the table flying.

He then started dragging her along the floor and out of the salon. Her employee Kevin Nguyen, who was doing her manicure, ran after them. Steven then kicked Kevin, who collapsed to the floor. He regained consciousness a moment later and saw Evans pick Rizza up and put her in his SUV. 

According to Kevin, someone else had driven the truck to the salon. He said that someone opened the SUV door from the inside so that Steven could put Rizza inside. 

Kevin attempted to run to the other side of the SUV and pull Rizza out, and he said that it was clear Rizza’s arm or shoulder was broken, and although he was yelling at her to run, she was unable to run away. 

Steven got out of the SUV and pointed a gun at both of them. Evans kicked both of them again, then he grabbed Rizza by her hair and yanked her back into the SUV. 

Evans pointed the gun at Kevin, who fled into a nearby store, called 9-1-1, and reported a kidnapping at gunpoint. 

[John] 

Knowing who the suspect was, the police headed to Steven Evans’ house in the 9600 block of Scrub Jay Court, near West Sunset Road and South Grand Canyon Drive. 

When they arrived, they observed the SUV in the driveway, noted no one was in the car or outside, and set up a perimeter around the home in the neighborhood. 

The police soon learned that their 3-year-old daughter was also inside the house along with two other women, whose identities have not been released.

The SWAT team and hostage negotiators arrived, and over the course of the next few hours, they were able to secure the release of one of the women and the child. The police were told that Rizza was unconscious inside and that Evans had access to several guns. 

Around 10 pm they decided to breach the house and used flash bang grenades to enter. They found Rizza unresponsive, and Evans was found in an upstairs bedroom with a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. 

Rizza was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the coroner, she’d died from “multiple sharp and blunt injuries, and strangulation”

The other woman was found hiding in a bedroom, unhurt.

The police reached the obvious conclusion. Evans murdered Rizza, then shot himself. They described him as her ex-boyfriend who had been stalking her & “wanted her back”; 

According to her gym owner friend Nick, he was so obsessed with her and didn’t want anyone else to have her.  

[Shaun]

Rizza’s family has also come forward stating that they saw red flags about Steven from the beginning. Her sister Lynn said that Steven had “almost killed her” several times and that Rizza “knew it was going to happen she just didn't know when”

Her oldest daughter has told 8 News now that her mother was a victim of domestic abuse and that there had been abuse in their relationship from the very beginning of it all. 

Unfortunately, this case attracted a lot of victim blaming according to Rizza’s oldest daughter. It's always so heartbreaking to hear that her daughter has to hear all of this victim blaming, none of which is true. We’ve covered this a few times, but it's worth remembering that a victim can do everything in her power to get away from an abuser, and still end up being murdered. 

Several people in Rizza’s life had said she was doing everything possible including calling the police, lawyers, and even getting a restraining order. She’d gone to the police and the courts for help. 

People will often resort to victim blaming because they want to believe that if they are ever in the same situation, they will do the “right things” and they will be safe. 

Of course, we’ll share the resources for getting help. We want to remind everyone listening that there are resources available to help victims of domestic violence, so if you or someone in your life is in a dangerous situation, don't wait. Do everything in your power to get them the resources to help themselves. You can even reach out to the resources on their behalf or for your own mental health and support. 

[John]

Her family hopes that people will hear and understand the red flags in a relationship. Her sister Ricomyr has expressed how hard it is to talk about Rizza and not cry. Her oldest daughter has said that she feels no one talks about domestic violence enough. She understands that her mom is not the only victim and domestic violence “Has always been the problem.” 

Domestic violence definitely continues to be a huge problem in Las Vegas. 

Not even 36 hours before Rizza was killed, another young woman, 22-year-old Ariez Eldridge was killed in a murder-suicide by her boyfriend, 18-year-old Gregory Ford. 

Ariez lived in North Las Vegas, at Las Vegas Boulevard near Lake Mead. Around 9 am on June 14, 2023, police were called to their apartment, Ariez had been shot multiple times, and Gregory was dead from a single gunshot wound. Ariez was transported to UMC, but later died from her injuries.

That’s all we know about the crime and their relationship. As I said earlier, it’s not uncommon for the news media only to report on the name and age of a victim, and the location of where they died. 

Ariez’s family published a beautiful obituary for her and even included letters they had written to her. 

She was born April 30, 2001, she was her parents’ youngest and their only daughter. They said that she was a star from the moment she was born. She was bubbly and outgoing, fearless, and “a force to be reckoned with.” She was an animal lover, and “From her looks to her style, and down to her sweet-natured heart, Ariez was an experience. And to experience her, was certainly a blessing.”

[Shaun]

She had an infant son and was described as a devoted mother, who focused on instilling in her son strong values. She had many hopes and dreams for herself and for her son. 

In less than a 48-hour time frame, these two remarkable mothers, sisters, and daughters were stolen from their families by these senseless acts of violence and control. 

We will continue to cover these cases and want to take a second to remind all of you that the suicide hotline is 988 and that we have a list of resources on our website for agencies that can help with safety planning & other support. That’s at sinsandsurvivors.com

Thanks as always for listening & remember what happens here,

happens everywhere.